


How to Melt

by Oriviurr



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, also known as how yuri plisetsky learned that he didn't actually have to fight the ENTIRE world, learning curves for all, yuri-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9059536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oriviurr/pseuds/Oriviurr
Summary: Yuri Plisetky's life so far can be summed up in some unfortunate events, and the people who fixed him after them.





	1. War

> “Life is only a flicker of melted ice.”  
>  **―Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun**

\--

Everything on the ice is a war, and it’s a war that Yuri Plisetsky is going to win.

He doesn’t remember a time before skating. Grandpa first sent him for lessons when he was four, just a month after his mother had realised she couldn’t raise a child to save her life. He started skating because Grandpa was still running his old corner shop then, and he needed a place to drop Yuri off where he’d be safe before he was old enough to go to school. It was only temporary.

When he was old enough to go to school, he started to go to the rink afterwards instead.

He used to run straight from school to the ice rink, trudging up the hills with beaten up, second hand ice skates that Grandpa gave him for his seventh birthday, eager for the freedom of the ice. He didn’t like school. Most of the teachers had problems with him, and he had problems with them, and sometimes the whole thing felt like a prison, but when he mentioned it to his grandpa, he said that if Yuri wanted to fly he would. And Yuri wanted to fly. Yuri wanted to fly very badly.

His first teacher was a very kind lady named Evgenia. He can’t remember her surname, but he can remember the enveloping smell of her perfume, and the brilliant grins she’d give him when he did something absolutely brilliant. He can remember the way she’d reminded him of his mother, but in a way that she was _better_. She was what a mother should be. Really, he can’t even remember his mother. She passed when he was six, and he only rarely thinks of what could’ve been.

(In his quietest, guiltiest thoughts, late at night, he ponders that if she’d never given up custody he probably wouldn’t have skated. It terrifies him sometimes that he’s glad she left him behind.)

He kept skating. He got better and better and eventually some rich person who wanted to look charitable caught sight of him and sponsered him to get a private coach, because even at seven he just screamed prodigy. It was nice to finally get the attention he needed to be the absolute best he could (to _win_ ), but he did miss Evgenia’s smiles.

When he was fourteen, he started working at the corner shop. Just little shifts for pocket money, but they were worth so much more because they helped him understand more about his community. Every single mother, every desperate jobseeker, every soldier who remembered too much showed him his path. Their stories taught him to be the best.

When the shop closed because they were losing too much, too much to live on, Yuri cried all night, and realised numbly that the shop’s closure hurt him more than his mother’s death.

\--

Three years before the shop closed, Yakov took Yuri in. Yakov Feltsman to an eleven year old was tall, intimidating and _scary_ , and it wasn’t Yuri’s fault that during their first lesson he’d started to cry. It wasn’t even an ‘I’m scared’ crying, it was a ‘This is intense and I am a tired, stressed eleven year old’ crying. Looking back, he’s fairly sure Yakov had dealt with that kind of thing before, since his reaction was to calmly sit Yuri down, to assure him that he was easily the best skater of his age among Yakov’s students and there was no need to fret, and to ask Yuri to talk about his home life. Yuri had sniffled, and talked about his grandpa, and somewhere in that conversation Yuri realised that Yakov wasn’t just a coach, but a person.

That very same day, Yuri talked to Viktor Nikiforov for the first time. Before, Viktor had been an idol, an untouchable hero behind a screen, He was perfect, absolutely perfect, and Yuri had spent nights and nights awake watching foreign competitions, listening to commentators speaking languages he didn’t understand, just to get a glimpse of his magic. Because Viktor was someone Yuri _looked up to_.

But when Nikiforov and a girl walked up to eleven-year-old Yuri, who was sat alone in the lunch area at the rink, he, too, became a person. Because Viktor Nikiforov, living legend, sat himself down and placed a freshly bought lunch in front of Yuri.

“Heeeey!” he drawled, grinning broadly. “I’m Viktor! And this is Mila,” he indicated to the girl with firey hair and an even more firey smile. “You really have to eat if you’re going to compete professionally, you know? Anyway, from what _I_ saw you looked pretty amazing.” Yuri felt himself burn with pride, burn absolutely to ashes on the cold ground, and then rise anew.

They had a pretty in depth advice session, and the next day, when Yuri didn’t have lunch again (because the shop was failing and they didn’t have the _money-_ ), Viktor silently dropped another lunch on the table, and when Yuri looked up, the man smirked and walked away.

Somewhere along the line Viktor had stopped being someone Yuri looked up to. He’d stopped being the epitome of good skating. He’d seemingly climbed down from the podium a younger Yuri had placed him on. He’d become not someone Yuri wanted to be, but someone Yuri wanted to beat.

Not that he talked to Viktor that much. For a start, Viktor was almost double his age, and a twenty two year old with a plethora of gold medals behind him didn’t have time to talk to weird, anti-social kids who couldn’t afford lunch. But apparently they could _buy_ that lunch.

After Yuri won his first Junior Grand Prix at twelve, he started to buy lunch everyday, but Viktor and he remained close now that they were travelling to competitions together.

When Viktor ran away to the _other_ Yuri, Yuri realised with a jolt that his anger wasn’t because Viktor had left him behind, but because Viktor had flown away.

And Yuri wanted to fly too.


	2. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yuri wins a gold medal and two dads.

The day he reconnects with Otabek, Yuri spends the night checking his phone for pictures of that summer camp. It takes a while, but eventually he finds one. It isn’t even on his phone, but buried in the archives of Yakov’s website.

It’s a cute group picture. All of them lined up, smiling, not a child over fifteen. It’s weird. He feels a little like he’s lost something. Like his childhood should be spent in summer camps again, and not intense training regimes. He makes a mental note to ask Yakov to let him assist during the next camp. He’s sure he’d be allowed. Yuri rarely asks to do things like this for himself, and Yakov always jumps at the chance to form at least one of his skaters into a well-adjusted human.

It takes a while to find Otabek, but when he does, it’s like a rush of warmth in his chest. He’s standing right at the edge, looking a little bit awkward. He’s holding the hand of a boy who’s too short to be seen very clearly, and really should’ve sat in the front. Yuri recognises the blonde bob and fierce, fierce expression. He sends a snap to Otabek. He doesn’t receive a reply, because of course he doesn’t. It’s the GPF tomorrow.

He thinks, for the first time in this long, long season, he understands what Agape is. Because it’s that warmth in his chest when he saw fourteen-year-old Otabek. It’s the feeling of belonging when Mila pushes him around the rink and laughs at his snarky comments. It’s Yuuko’s texts, and that motivation to keep going from a woman he barely knows. It’s Grandpa, who’s always there with a warm hand and a smile, even if he lets him down completely. It’s Yuuri and Viktor, who despite being his ultimate rivals keep cheering him on. Keep being _proud_ of him.

No matter the outcome at the end of the GPF, Yuri knows that Viktor and Yuuri will not leave him behind.

(In the middle of the night, Yuri contemplates growing up with them as his parents.

He wouldn’t hate it.)

\--

Yuri stands on the podium, gold medal heavy on his neck. Everyone’s thinking about him, but he can only think about Yuuri.

He looks down quickly, righting his expression before the cameras catch anything like affection. Yuuri looks… content. Not incredibly happy. A little disappointed in himself perhaps, but Yuuri’s always understood something Yuri never could.

That it’s not all about the medals.

Because Yuuri- _Yuuri’s proven himself_. Yuuri has swoopen in and grabbed silver despite being the last placed contestent in Barcelona. Yuuri and Viktor, two gay men from countries where LGBT rights aren’t great, have proven themselves to everyone. Proven how far they can fly. How far they _will_ fly.

And Yuuri knows that the most important piece of gold he could wish for is right around his finger.

It’s Yuri’s day, but he can’t relax until he finds out if Yuuri will still retire. Because he can’t. He can’t he can’t _he can’t_.

(Yuuri can’t leave him behind. He _wouldn’t._ )

It’s late that night, when Viktor calls him into their room, that Yuri really wins. The minute he’s in the door, Yuuri is hugging him. And he’s-

He’s crying.

“I-“ Yuuri gurgles into his shoulder, barely comprehensible now that his japanese accent is covered in sobs. “I am so _proud_ of you, Yurio.”

Yuri, startled, reciprocates the hug. He looks up at Viktor, and gets a lump in his throat when he realises he has tears in his eyes too.

This is the agape that won him a world record. Not agape of his own, but the agape of others. Endless, unconditional love.

Yuuri grabs his shoulders and looks him in the eye. He sniffs, smiling, while Yuri stares at him, unsure of himself.

“I’m not going to retire. Not now anyway. Sorry if we scared you.”

And Yuri, held tight in the arms of a man who, no matter how many times Yuri has pushed him away, keeps coming back with a soft smile and support, wins.

Yuri finally wins.

**Author's Note:**

> i am so tired right now.  
> look ok so yuri is a very interesting character because he contrasts so perfectly with yuri k and hefhiwhfdnjwko.  
> I'LL POST CHAPTER TWO SOMEDAY. here's the layout  
> each part will involve a different influence in yuri's life -->  
> chp 1, pt 1 = kolya plisetky (grandpa)  
> chp 1, pt 2 = viktor (and yakov to a lesser extent)  
> chp 2, pt 1 = otabek  
> chp 2, pt 2 = yuri k.  
> i'm also seperating them into chp 1 being centred around yuri fighting, and chp 2 centred around yuri loving. there will be a bit of bleed because i do not like limitation even by myself.  
> ENJOY.


End file.
